Wednesday, January 25, 2012

It seems no wonder that we must remove Jesus Christ from our society. He preached that we should help the poor unconditionally. We can't live in a society with Christ, while some people starve outside in the cold. Either Jesus has got to go or the imbalance of wealth. It makes me sad to see our choice.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

I have argued for a long time that copyrights and patents are hindering the expansion of human consciousness, but my arguments had lacked comparative validity until now. I stumbled across some information from the Norman Lear Centre that compares the fashion industry with other creative industries. It sums up what I've been only able to hint at for years.

Here is an excerpt from their site:

The music and film industries have argued that financial ruin awaits anyone who lets creative work be freely appropriated. They’ve argued that creative works must be strictly controlled through technology and copyright law. These efforts have a direct effect on artists, musicians, writers, researchers and filmmakers – unlike fashion designers, they cannot freely sample from the creative products that surround them.

Whether inspiration comes from fellow designers, vintage patterns, street kids or royalty, fashion designers openly pay homage to their influences through appropriation. Each new wave of designers depends upon its predecessors. And, because fashion (like DNA) is recombinant to its core, no one presumes that they can own design elements such as the Dolman sleeve, the trench coat or the pearl neckline.

Reuse, repurpose, redefine, recreate, recombine – any way you look at it, the genius of the fashion industry is its ability to thrive in a system built upon borrowed inspiration. As long as there is no trademark infringement, designers are free to roam the creative landscape, sampling what they wish. Just imagine if it were the same in other industries.

What else can be said? Imagine if the music industry could thrive like the fashion industry instead of being stifled like it is now. Musicians would have to create works that were harder to copy instead of making musical pablum and relying on copyright protections to get paid.

Copyright law is actually doing the opposite of what its proponents argue for. And the diversity and size of the fashion industry seems to support this idea.

Friday, January 6, 2012

I wonder whether it's generally understood there are two forms of government: our democratic provisional government and an unelected permanent government; the provisional government is elected, and the permanent government is a self-appointed elite, which overshadows the provisional government.

Paul Hellyer, founder of the Canadian Action Party, Member of Parliament at age twenty-five, worked as Minister of Defence under Trudeau and Pearson, is now eighty-eight years old and sums up the permanent government fairly well is his book Light at the End of the Tunnel:

"The big supranatural corporations with their lobbyists, public relations firms and lawyers, the international banks with their close ties to both the Fed and Treasury Department ... the IMF and world bank ... the information conglomerates that blur the lines between the manufacture of news and culture and its dissemination, these are all parts of the permanent government that holds the reins of real power. It is a power camouflaged by the diversions created by the antics of the politicians comprising the parallel provisional government." (201-2)

And just to be clear what we're talking about, "our governments rather than being of, by and for the people, in accordance with the textbooks, are government by the elite for the benefit of the elite. Their dominance is maintained by an intricate network of interlocking private and public groups that control vast banking, commercial, including oil, and 'news' distribution empires. Collectively, they are without doubt the most powerful unofficial conglomerate in the world." (203)

The reason I wonder if this is common knowledge is because if we know our elected provisional government is controlled by an unelected permanent government, then why do we allow it to continue? Do we feel powerless? Are we controlled? Or do we actually like the current system? And if the understanding of these two forms of government is not common knowledge, then why is it not?

Sunday, January 1, 2012

There is a large and growing argument for mass depopulation. Some arguments go as far as to claim that couples who cannot provide a decent income and support for a child should not produce children to be a burden for their neighbours, that bringing unneeded children into an overcrowded lifeboat is evil.

Many will nod their heads in agreement. But the argument speaks of unneeded children. Excuse me?

While on the topic of need, how much income and support does a child need? For that matter, how much does any human being need? The problem is not overpopulation but over consumption. We do not need fewer people; we need fewer cars and televisions and wars.

It's hard to believe there is a strong argument suggesting the need for fewer people because we are unwilling to have less stuff. Or is it? Somehow it seems easier to envision the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Yet one is real and the other an ideology.

Life is about making babies, caring for them and caring for our elders. Instead we have been creating systems and machines to care for them so we can have free time to destroy the planet in the name of progress. Although this may have not been our intention, the road to hell has thus been paved.

Then the argument cries for more education (read: indoctrination) to stop making babies, to create more systems and machines in order to repair the world we have damaged, instead of doing what we are supposed to do: care for our children and our elders, and allow the planet to heal herself.

I Am

I have no other desire than to seek out and fulfil the will of God to the best of my ability. Generally that means telling the truth, ugly and subjective as that might be. For me it has been and continues to be a dirty and crazy journey and far from safe.